Great reading about the US Gulf Coast enlightens and entertains visitors to the gulf
I like to read books about the places I visit on my travels. So I thought it would be helpful to recommend some reading about the U.S. Gulf Coast for folks who want to know more of the culture, the history, the environment, and the literature of our unique Coast.
The first I would suggest is a book that is part autobiography, part politics, part culture studies, and part environmental reporting. The book focuses on the area this website has outlined as its primary focus – the upper Gulf Coast from Panama City, Florida, through the Alabama coast, to Biloxi, Mississippi, an area that was known for decades as the Redneck Riviera.
Science and Culture of the Gulf Coast
The Rise and Decline of the Redneck Riviera, by Harvey H. Jackson III (University of Georgia Press, 2012).
This book is subtitled An Insider’s History of the Florida-Alabama Coast. Jackson is a historian and native Alabamian, and he gives a comprehensive history of how working class Southerners (primarily) have embraced the shoreline for vacations since the 1940s. They built small cottages on or near the beach, and the cities built tacky amusement parks and dance halls with questionable reputations to entertain them when the sun went down. Some went fishing, of course. Others sought out gambling dens. The kids loved Ferris wheels and fast roller coasters.
Then Hurricane Frederic changed everything in 1979. The cottages and amusement parks were demolished, and the developers moved in to buy the scoured lots. Using easy financing, low interest rates, and other financial advantages, the developers built towering condos, expensive beach houses, swimming pools, shopping centers, and upscale restaurants for the more well-to-do vacationers and home buyers. It transformed the shoreline from the Redneck Riviera into the Emerald Coast.
The Gulf, by Jack E. Davis (Liveright Publishing, 2017).
An environmental historian at the University of Florida, Davis has written an accessible, wide-ranging study of the Gulf of Mexico and the American coast that borders it. Subtitled The Making of An American Sea, the book is an extensive treatment of the subject. John M. Barry, author of Rising Tide, wrote that the book is “1,000 miles wide and 10,000 feed deep.” I agree. The history of human interaction with the Gulf and its Coast is fascinating, from the Spanish and French explorers and the Native Americans, to the eventual American settlement of the Coast, the story is readable and informative. As an environmental historian, Davis provides insight into the use and abuse of the Gulf and the Coast.
Living on the Edge of the Gulf: The West Florida and Alabama Coast, by David M. Bush, Norma J. Longo, and others (Duke University Press, 2001.
This is a scientific book by geologists, an engineer, and a professor of earth science. The book is for people who want an in depth understanding of the geological and ecological processes at work on the Coast. The work is not as accessible to the casual reader as others I’ve included here, but if you want good science about the Gulf, this is it.
Strange Tales of the Gulf Coast
Oddball Florida: A Guide to Some Really Strange Places, by Jerome Pohlen (Chicago Review Press, 2004); Alabama Back Road Restaurant Recipes: A Cookbook and Restaurant Guide, by Anita Musgrove (Great American Publishers, 2014); Only in Mississippi: A Guide for the Adventurous Traveler, by Lorraine Redd (Quail Ridge Press, 1993).
Well, the Gulf Coast has its quirks and follies and these books help you find them. Oddball Florida has a section on the Gulf Coast Panhandle that covers such things as the air conditioner museum in Apalachicola, the world’s tiniest police station in Carrabelle, the Gulf Breeze UFO flap, the Museum of Man in the Sea in Panama City Beach, and the Truman Show Town of Seaside, among other oddities.
Alabama Back Road Restaurant Recipes includes tasty entrees and treats from The Lighthouse Bakery in Dauphin Island, Pirates Cove Marina and Restaurant in Elberta, and The Biscuit King Café in Fairhope, among others.
Only in Mississippi includes write-ups about the Mad Potter of Biloxi, George Ohr; folk artist Alice Moseley; and the beer can collector Warren Fuller in D’Iberville who has over 15,000 beer cans, bottles, and other beer memorabilia from over 80 countries.
History of the Gulf Coast
Legends and Lore of the Mississippi Golden Gulf Coast, by Edmond Boudreaux Jr. (History Press, 2013); Fort Morgan, by Bob England, Jack Friend, Michael Baily, and Blanton Blankenship (Arcadia, 2000); Florida’s Miracle Strip: From Redneck Riviera to Emerald Coast, by Tim Hollis (University of Mississippi, 2004).
If you’re into history, you’ll find these books interesting. Legends and Lore collects some of the tall tales and true legends of pirates and buried treasure, Native Americans, less-than-sane artists such as George Ohr and Walter Anderson, U.S. presidential visits, and the inventor of Barq’s Root Beer.
Fort Morgan gives a detailed and fascinating history of the fort that sits on the tip of the peninsula that takes its name. There are other books in this collection from Arcadia Publishing that tell the history of the upper Gulf Coast, including books on Mobile, Alabama; Fairhope, Alabama; the USS Alabama; Mobile Aviators; Mobile baseball; Hattiesburg, Mississippi; and on the Eastern Shore that is Baldwin County, Alabama; as well as Baldwin County itself.
Florida’s Miracle Strip is a history of the amusement parks, resorts, and other developments along the Coast from Panama City Beach to Pensacola. It’s fun to read about the wacky amusements from creative miniature golf courses to western adventures, jungle adventures, and many others.
The Mobile River, by John S. Sledge (University of South Carolina Press, 2015).
The Mobile River is one of the more important rivers that flow into Mobile Bay. It has long supported shipping and other commercial development, as well as fishing and other water activities. This is a narrative history of this waterway. Sledge, an historian, covers the forts that were built on its shores and other aspects of its history that weaves a fascinating story of one river’s influence on the Coast.
Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America, by Sylviane A. Diouf (Oxford University Press, 2007).
Whether the Clotilda was the last slave ship to bring Africans to America is a contested assertion, but much evidence points to it. This is a historian’s well researched book about that fateful journey and the people it brought into Mobile Bay to become slaves. After the Civil War, those who traveled on the Clotilda returned to the approximate place where the ship had docked in the summer of 1860 and, unable to get back to Africa, built a community for themselves as freed men and women. They called it Africatown.
The Clotilda had been burned and sunk in the mud of Mobile Bay to hide the evidence of the shipment, because federal law made it a capital offense to bring slaves into the United States in 1860. In 2019, the remains of that ship were found and plans were being made to raise it so it can be displayed in Africatown.
The Pirates Laffite: The Treacherous World of the Corsairs of the Gulf, by William C. Davis (Harcourt, 2005).
Jean Laffite is perhaps the best known of the real-life pirates that plied the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. He and his crew operated out of camps on the coast of what is now Mississippi; and after pirating, Laffite moved to New Orleans. This is a rousing tale of Laffite and the men and women who sailed with him and the world they created.
West Wind, Flood Tide: The Battle of Mobile Bay, by Jack Friend (Naval Institute Press, 2004).
The battle of Mobile Bay was the most significant naval battle of the U.S. Civil War. Flanked on each side of its entrance by Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines, Mobile Bay was a formidable challenge for the Federal navy. Its ships entered the Bay and took a beating from the cannons at the forts and on the Confederate ships that sailed from Mobile to meet them. The battle occurred in August of 1864 and ended with a Federal victory. The forts were captured, and Admiral David Farragut’s fleet moved to capture the important Confederate port of Mobile, Alabama. This is perhaps the best telling of that important battle.
Select Guide Books of the Gulf Coast
Exploring Coastal Mississippi: A Guide to the Marine Waters and Islands, by Scott B. Williams (University of Mississippi Press, 2004).
If you’re interested in kayaking or boating around the barrier islands and coast of Mississippi, this is a great guide of the waters and shorelines. Included are tips on navigation and camping.
Scenic Driving Florida, by Jan Godown Annino (GPP Travel, 2010).
This book has been around since 1998, but I’ve included the information on its latest edition. If you’re interested in taking road trips along the scenic highways of the upper Gulf Coast, this is a good guide. The first six chapters covers from Pensacola to Apalachicola.
True Crime on the Gulf Coast
Mississippi Mud: A True Story from a Corner of the Deep South, by Edward Humes (Simon and Schuster, 1994).
If you like true crime writing, Mississippi Mud will thrill you. Humes is an accomplished investigative reporter, so his story can be trusted. It is about the Dixie Mafia that centered in Biloxi and how the protection of gambling before casinos were legal led to the murder of one of Biloxi’s most prominent couples, a judge and his councilwoman wife who was running for mayor on an anti-corruption platform. The murder of Margaret and Vince Sherry by a hitman for the mafia occurred in 1987. This is a gripping read about real life corruption and murder on the Gulf Coast.
Short Stories, Poetry, and Novels
Secrets of the Devil Vine, by Faith Kaiser (Livingston Press, 2017).
In this her first novel, Faith Kaiser draws on her life on Fort Morgan peninsula to create a story of political corruption and child abuse surrounding the short-lived high-end resort built in the 1950s in the abandoned buildings of Fort Morgan after World War II. The military had closed the fort and gave it to the state of Alabama. The resort had a marina and a landing strip for aircraft. Guests included governors and state senators. The resort closed after about a decade, but while it was open it was one of the few resorts in Gulf Shores. This is a disturbing read, well told, with engaging characters and scene-setting.
A Sound Like Thunder, by Sonny Brewer (Ballantine Books, 2006); The Poet of Tolstoy Park, by Sonny Brewer (Ballantine Books, reprinted, 2006).
Brewer is a resident of Fairhope, Alabama, where both novels are set. Interesting characters populate Brewer’s novels, and their tales will seep into your souls.
Chicken Dreaming Corn, by Roy Hoffman (University of Georgia Press, 2006); Come Landfall, by Roy Hoffman (University of Alabama Press, 2014).
The great author Harper Lee said of Roy Hoffman that his characters “represent some of the best aspects of our Southern heritage.”
Chicken Dreaming Corn is a novel based on Hoffman’s immigrant grandfather and tells a story set in early 20th Century Mobile, Alabama.
Come Landfall is set in coastal Mississippi. The characters are three women of different generations: one in her eighties, her daughter in her twenties, and their teenage friend who is the daughter of a Vietnamese shrimper who had relocated to the Gulf Coast after the Vietnam War. It is a story of love and loss, a story about how people get caught up in history that can sometimes be cruel.
The Gulf Coast: A Literary Field Guide, edited by Sara St. Antoine (Milkweed Editions, 2006).
This is one of the books in the “Stories from Where We Live” collection. It is a compilation of poems, short stories, and essays about the Gulf Coast. Works by Barry Hannah of Mississippi, Raymond E. Williams of Texas, John James Audubon, and Edward O. Wilson are included. The book defines the Gulf Coast ecoregion as “an enormous horseshoe of land that enclosed the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico” extending “from eastern Mexico and Texas to Louisiana, Mississippi, and southern Alabama, to western and southernmost Florida.” It is a culturally diverse, biologically rich region that is captured in the writings compiled here.
Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn Ward (Bloomsbury, 2011).
This novel won the National Book Award and established Jesmyn Ward as a major American writer. The novel is set in coastal Mississippi, where Ward lives. It tells the story of a poor family from rural Mississippi as they prepare for a coming hurricane.
The Gulf of Mexico: A Maritime History, by John S. Sledge (University of South Carolina, 2019).
Historian John Sledge covers how humans have sailed, fished, dived, and swam in the Gulf Coast for hundreds of years. His narrative, sometimes personal, provides a fascinating, well-researched look at the past 500 years on the coast. His engaging story of exploration and commercial exploit, settlement and exploitation leaves the reader wanting to get in a boat or ship to sail the waters that lap upon the shore.